


Fall In Time

by inlovewithnight



Category: Battlestar Galactica (2003)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-02-22
Updated: 2008-02-22
Packaged: 2017-10-15 15:06:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,326
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/162042
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inlovewithnight/pseuds/inlovewithnight





	Fall In Time

They meet on Galactica, in the quarters he hates; they somehow feel smaller and more cramped than the racks, even though it's a room of his own. It's probably the quiet that does it, the discomfort of being by himself after so many years of closeness. If the humming and clanking of the ship wasn't a constant from place to place, it would be so frakking quiet he wouldn't be able to sleep.

Knowing that Sharon has her own quarters that are also too quiet and too lonely doesn't help a damn bit, either, of course, but he tries not to dwell on that too much. Dwelling, he's found, is one of the more exceptionally unhelpful pastimes anymore.

Dee looks around the room with disinterest, but she's seen them before; they've had this meeting once a week for too damn long now, for most of the time they've been circling New Caprica like a dog chasing its tail. At first, the plan had been for the senior-staff meetings to alternate between the ships; Galactica one week, Pegasus the next. Somehow that fell by the wayside over time, though whether Admiral Adama or Commander Adama was responsible, Helo can't venture to say. Some combination of both plus inertia, no doubt. What it comes down to is that nobody from Galactica except pilots on rotation has set foot on Pegasus in months.

He can't imagine it's changed much. Nothing does, out here.

That's not true, of course. People change. He's changed; compare him to the kid he was once, or the ECO he was before the attacks, or to the man running for his life on Caprica, and he's hardly recognizable at all. He doesn't know his own face in the mirror some mornings, balanced over a bridge officer's uniform and with ship specs and regulations running in tired loops behind his eyes. He never gave a frak about those things. He never wanted to.

Dee has changed, too, since the attacks, since...what was his name? Billy. Since Billy. Certainly since being promoted, since marrying Lee.

He's a firm enough believer in minding his own business that he doesn't let himself move any further down that line of speculation. But he doesn't remember her holding her shoulders that way, before, or approaching a glass of liquor with quite that grim appreciation. Leave it at that.

She pushes a stack of papers across the table at him with a sigh. "Why do we do this, Helo? It's all 'nothing to report.' Never anything to report. We're not doing anything."

"Gotta go by the book, Dee. Follow the regs."

She closes her eyes and rubs at her temples. "Tired of regs."

"Kind of nice to have the consistency."

"Tired of consistency." She shakes her head and sits up straighter, blinking hard. He knows the look on her face, feels it on his own often enough. The weary need to clear his head and snap back into focus. "How's Sharon?"

"Still in the brig." He pours them each another glass of deck brew, his hand loose and careless on the bottle, throwing drops to the surface of the table.

Dee bites her lower lip, worrying her teeth back and forth. "Weird, you know? If you think about it."

"What is?" There are about eleven million answers to that question. Every damned thing in their lives is weird.

She takes another drink and smiles, a bitter little twist that doesn't belong on her face. "We both ended up marrying robots."

"Dee."

"I guess that wasn't fair." She looks away, her eyes tracking over the bare, unadorned walls of the room.

"Lee's a good officer. A good commander."

"I meant it wasn't fair to her." Dee's eyes snap back to him and there's something he recognizes there, saw all too often before New Caprica, when there were still enough people around to care. Contempt. "She can't help what she was made to be. He made a choice. He's making a choice. Every gods-damned day."

"Dee, come on."

"Oh, I'm so sorry, Helo." She pushes her hair back over her shoulder, slumping back in her chair. "I guess I thought you of all people might have some understanding about what it's like to just..."

He waits for a minute and then sighs. "Just what?"

"Forget it."

"No, just what?"

"Just get tired of it." She reaches for her glass again, finds it empty, and pushes it across the table toward him. "I guess you wouldn't know anything about that. You never get tired, do you? Workhorse. Beast of the frakking fields. What do they say on Aerilon, the farmers, what is it--'strong like like bull, dumb like ox, hitch to plow when horse dies.' That's you."

He waits for the storm to pass, lets the words fly past him like arrows. Some part at the back of his mind wonders when Dee got mean, but the rest knows better. She isn't mean, she's exhausted and there's no hope up here, it's all gone down to a spinning ball of rock with a tent city and a petty little king.

"Gods, Helo." She presses her hands over her face, a shield that would convince more if they weren't shaking. "I didn't mean that. I'm sorry."

"I know, Dee."

"It's just hard." The harsh, unforgiving lighting of the battlestar makes the tears that run down around her hands glitter sharply, makes it impossible to pretend he doesn't see them. "So frakking hard. Everything is just..."

"Dee..." He's on his feet and moving around the table, to her side, and before he catches himself he's kneeling down beside her chair, circling his fingers around her wrists and guiding her hands from her face so he can look at her. "I know it's hard. It's...it'll be okay."

"Will it?" Her voice breaks and he can't stand it, can't stand one more thing being _wrong_ on his watch, in his world, one more of the tiny number of people he calls his hurting. It would be too much for any man to carry, and he's never been so weak as to believe that he is the best of men.

He leans in and kisses her, feeling her tears hot against his own face. Her wrists turn in his hands and he lets them go, lets her settle her hands on his shoulders and touch him, fingers brushing his neck above his uniform collar. His own hands drift without any thought from him, moving down to brush the curve of her breast through her jacket and then to rest on her waist.

She's tiny under his hands; they nearly encircle her, even as hesitant as his touch is now. He can feel her breathing, quick and shallow, her body shaking with it. She turns her head to the side, away from his kiss, and he rests his forehead on her shoulder, trying to will his strength into her, to still her shaking.

She makes a low sound, thick with frustration, then whispers "Frak" and presses against his shoulders, pushing him back. "I have to go."

He shifts his weight back onto his heels, pulling away enough to let her stand up and step clear.

"My apologies, Captain Agathon," she says stiffly. He nods, getting to his feet and moving back around to his chair, placing the desk between them again.

"No apologies needed, Lieutenant."

"I..." She draws her breath in through her nose, lets it go slowly, draws herself up to perfect officer's posture. "I lost my composure for a moment. It won't happen again."

He meets her eyes and smiles, small and sharp, a conspirator's smile. "That's what separates us from the robots, I guess."

She laughs as she moves out the door; it's a choked little sound but better than the silence that follows, when he's alone again with his thoughts in the gods-cursed XO's quarters that are never going to feel anything like home.  



End file.
